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Sitting Less Linked to Living Longer: 10 Ways to Move More

Are you sitting down right now? You might want to read this standing up! As SELF has previously reported, sitting for more than six hours a day decreases your life expectancy, and new research shows that sitting for less than...

Are you sitting down right now? You might want to read this standing up!

As SELF has previously reported, sitting for more than six hours a day decreases your life expectancy, and new research shows that sitting for less than three hours a day -- and cutting back on the boob tube -- might increase your longevity.

Peter Katzmarzyk, Ph.D., professor and associate executive director for population science at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University System in Baton Rouge, La., and lead author of the study (published in the journal BMJ Open) explains to HealthySELF that his research is based on reviews of previous studies involving a total of 167,000 adults. Two of those studies tracked self-reported amounts of time spent sitting and three involved self-reported amounts of TV-watching time. ("Watching television is a good marker of sedentary behavior," he explains.)

Katzmarzyk found that the average American reports sitting for a total about five hours per day, but sitting less than three hours per day would increase the life expectancy of that average American by about two years. Cutting TV time to less than two hours a day would also increase longevity (by 1.38 years).

But is sitting for less than three hours a day realistic for those of us who aren't ballerinas and ER nurses? "Good question!" says Katzmarzyk. "If you believe that the average time spent sitting is five hours per day, that's a reduction of two hours, which seems feasible."

However, Katzmarzyk concedes, for people who have desk jobs or long commutes, cutting back on sitting is not so easy. However, the goal should still be to reduce your amount of sitting time by a couple of hours a day, if possible.

"Sitting is a risk factor," says Katzmarzyk, who compares being sedentary with other health risk factors like obesity and not exercising regularly. "It's almost on par with smoking," he says, adding that it's important to note that sitting too much is a risk factor that's independent of how often you work out. In other words -- if you sit all day at the office, it's great that you spend an hour at the gym, but that doesn't diminish the ill effects of all that sedentary time.

Find little ways to break your sitting patterns at work. "Instead of sending an email to your co-worker down the hall, walk down to her office and talk in person," says Katzmarzyk. Revolutionary!

Advocate for standing-up meetings. (We bet this will cut down on meeting durations, too!)

Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. It seems simple, because it is.

Cut down on your sitting time to and from work by walking or biking even part of the way; parking farther away from your office building; or -- if you take a bus or subway -- getting off one stop farther away.

Use the bathroom and the water cooler on another floor in your building.

Take a break every hour or so during the work day to get up and walk, stretch or even work for a little while standing up. Set an alarm if you need a reminder.

Take a walk at lunchtime.

Stand up during all your phone calls.

Watch your fave TV shows on the treadmill at the gym rather than on the couch at home. (Double motivation for working out!)